


Life During Wartime

by RuinsPlume



Series: Time and Place [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Face Slapping, Family Issues, Light BDSM, M/M, Oral Sex, Queer Themes, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:08:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23825821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuinsPlume/pseuds/RuinsPlume
Summary: Between worrying about whether his father will recover from the snake bite and being jam-packed into Grimmauld Place with a family that doesn't understand him, Charlie's having a rough time of it.Fortunately for him, Sirius is going to smooth things out.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Charlie Weasley
Series: Time and Place [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1738246
Comments: 31
Kudos: 73





	Life During Wartime

**Author's Note:**

> While this fic can be read as a stand-alone, it is the second in a series, the first fic being [A Taste of Ginger](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8756620). Some minor details may have more resonance for those who read the other fic first.
> 
> Thanks to pauraque and shoulderpadfoot for their stellar beta work. 
> 
> Title is lifted from The Talking Heads' song of the same name.

Charlie is going to lose what’s left of his cool any second now, thank you very much. He’s been in England for less than five days, but at the moment he’s not sure he can last another five _minutes._ He doesn’t rattle easily, but right now it’s as bad as it used to get at Hogwarts. His magic has gone wonky and he can’t focus at all. 

He looks down at his father’s chart hanging at the foot of the hospital bed. The letters swirl and dance in his vision, turning themselves upside down when he tries to read them, rearranging their places in the line. RATHRU WEAYELS. This never happens to him in Romania. There’s a reason he hasn’t been back to England since the summer before last. 

For a moment he considers flooing to the Ministry and getting a portkey back to Romania tonight. Would that be so terrible? He’s done what he came to do: kissed his father’s unconscious forehead and told him he loves him, whispered that he knows Arthur didn’t mean the things he said to Charlie last time he was home. He’s comforted his mother and told her Dad will pull through. And he’s lost count of the hours he’s spent crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with his siblings here in the closed ward, all of them jostling Charlie’s childhood loose from the corners he keeps it tucked away in and sending him scrambling through old, unpleasant feelings, chief among them that when he’s with his family, he sticks out like a sore thumb: shorter and thicker than all the rest. It makes him feel like he’s back at Hogwarts, where he was rubbish at everything but Quidditch and Care of Magical Creatures, bollixing his exams so badly that he dropped out seventh year, exchanging bungled N.E.W.T.s for a chance to work with dragons as far away from England as he could get. 

A healer appears in the doorway of the ward and shoos them all out, thank Merlin; midday visiting hours are ending. As they jostle their way into the hall, tempers worn thin with worry, elbow-poking one another, Charlie’s mum turns around and announces that she wants all of them to head over to the Burrow _en mass_ e to pick up fresh cleaning supplies before returning to Grimmauld Place. 

“Can’t, Mum,” Charlie says quickly. He needs a break, right bloody now. “I’m going to see a friend,” he adds. 

It’s not entirely a lie; he just doesn’t know yet who the friend is. But as soon as he walks through the door of the Hooded Kestrel, he’ll find out. It always happens for him in a leather bar—all he has to do is get inside the door and then it happens, not unlike what he used to experience on the Quidditch pitch, when, the moment before spotting the Snitch, a bright, fiery pool of calm would envelop him. When he knew he’d see the Snitch and catch it. 

But he won’t have to play Seeker in the Kestrel. He’ll simply stand inside the heavy curtain beyond the front door and wait until he feels it, the thread of energy in the room flowing toward him from the one who’s meant to be his. He’ll feel it the way other wizards and witches feel their wands. He’ll stand there, his magic burning bright inside him, and wait until the other bloke, whoever he is, senses it too and turns on his barstool to stare at Charlie—at the young top with the red hair and a set of cage keys on a clip on his left hip. At his dragonhide boots and vest, his dragon-wrangling muscles bulging in his arms, and, once he takes off his jacket, at the pair of dragon tattoos on his forearms. The dragons will stir, waking. Lift their heads, and then all Charlie has to do is exhale. The temperature in the room will rise a few degrees, as if an extra log’s just been thrown on the fire. 

That’s who he’ll be when he gets to the Kestrel. 

_“Charlie.”_

His mum’s giving him the hard look she usually reserves for the twins. Charlie tries to banish from his thoughts the image of the last time he was in the Kestrel two years ago—that bloke on his knees on the floor between Charlie’s boots—because there are times when his mother is frighteningly good at reading her children’s thoughts. Charlie reckons she could have been a first-rate Legilimens if she’d trained. He doesn’t look at her when he answers. 

“What?” 

“You may not go see a friend,” Molly says, as if Charlie’s six, not twenty-three. 

He points this out, rather sharply, and to his dismay, her blue eyes fill with tears. 

“I’m sorry, dear—” she blinks her eyes dry again “—but I don’t want anything happening to anyone else, Charlie. I couldn’t bear it. We’ve only just got you back from Romania and you’ve already managed—” 

He cuts her off with a quick _All right, all right,_ because he doesn’t need to be reminded that when he arrived in England a few days ago, he nearly ended up in St. Mungo’s himself after splinching two toes during the last leg of his Apparition from Romania. Fucking Dutch Apparition points. The magic in Amsterdam’s too distracting, he can never focus there, he should have remembered. His mother had re-attached his toes herself, scolding the entire time—which he knows he should chalk up to the stress of the situation, but which was nonetheless maddening, and not an experience he’s eager to repeat. 

He has to admit, though, his toes are as good as new. His mum could have been a top-notch healer, too, if she’d wanted. 

“If you won’t come to the Burrow with us, Charlie—” 

She knows, then. She knows it’s not just the time jump and the worry about Arthur. She knows it’s something about the family itself that rattles Charlie. 

“—at least promise me you’ll go straight back to Grimmauld.”

Charlie sighs. If he can’t be close to his family, he can at least do this for his mother. “All right, I promise,” he says, and hugs her before turning to make his way down the ancient marble corridors of St. Mungo’s, feeling her eyes on him even after he’s left the ward and queued up for the public floo. 

~o~

The basement kitchen at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place is empty. Good. He hopes the rest of the house is empty too. Dusting the floo powder from his jacket, Charlie starts up the stairs, pleased by the absence of voices; even the screaming portrait is quiet. Maybe coming back to Grimmauld wasn’t such a bad idea after all: he’ll have the bedroom he’s been sharing with Bill all to himself, and he can have a wank and a kip in peace. It won’t be nearly as good as ordering a bloke to get on his knees and unbuckle Charlie’s belt with his mouth, but at least he won’t be clambering around the Burrow with an armful of mops and dusters, listening to Molly and Ginny argue and dodging hexes from the twins. 

But as he passes the library on his way to the second-floor staircase, he sees he’s not alone in the house after all. On the far side of the library table, nearly hidden by the towering stacks of books on the ebony tabletop, Sirius lies sprawled on a high-backed sofa, his booted feet on the armrest, and one arm flung over his face. He isn’t asleep though: his other hand, dangling near the floor, is cupping a snifter of firewhiskey. 

Charlie hasn’t seen much of Sirius beyond the occasional dinners in the mansion’s basement kitchen, and even then they’re at opposite ends of the table; Sirius at the head and Charlie somewhere down near the bottom, chair pushed back to evade Bill’s widespread knees or the twins’ sharp elbows and sharper sense of fun.

Charlie hasn’t given much thought to Sirius either, beyond feeling mildly grateful to him, in a kind of distracted, distant way, for constituting one-third of Grimmauld Place’s queer inhabitants this week. It had taken Charlie about fifteen seconds to figure out Sirius and Remus were a couple, and the rest of that first evening to deduce that the only person besides himself who was aware of the fact was the girl Ron’s mooning over—Hermione something. Charlie understands the need to be in the closet—he spent his entire adolescence there, after all—but he has no patience for it now, and perhaps that’s what’s made him give so little thought to Sirius and Remus this week: they’re part of the England that makes Charlie feel trapped. 

He’s giving some thought to Sirius now, however. Yes, indeed. Charlie takes in the long sprawl of him, the threadbare stovepipe jeans and down-at-heel dragonhide ankle boots that, back when they were new, must have cost what Charlie earns in a month. Sirius’s shirt—also very high-end, also worn to threads, the cuffs beginning to fray—is open at the neck, revealing the dark scrawl of prison tattoos across his chest. His black hair spills like ink across the sofa cushion wedged beneath his head, and when Charlie clears his throat, Sirius takes his time lifting his arm from his eyes, which tells Charlie that Sirius already knew someone was watching him from the doorway. 

He looks mildly surprised to see that it’s Charlie, though. A single raised-eyebrow’s-worth of surprise, to be exact. Then he smiles and raises his glass. 

“Wot cheer, Charlie.” Sirius sits up just enough to take a drink without spilling firewhiskey across his clavicles. 

Charlie watches Sirius’s lips shape themselves against the rim of the glass, watches Sirius’s throat move as he swallows. Watches the way Sirius’s eyes dart to the key clip on Charlie’s left hip. Then to his boots. When Sirius’s eyes return to Charlie’s face there’s something burning there. Something just for Charlie. 

He might not miss being at the Kestrel after all. 

“Wotcher yourself,” Charlie answers, feeling his cheeks warm. 

“Drink?” A wisp of smoke rises from the whiskey in Sirius's snifter. 

“I’ll skip it,” Charlie says, and Sirius grins and Charlie feels his abdomen heat as if he’d just done a shot of firewhiskey anyway.

He comes all the way into the room and shuts the door, sliding his wand from his sleeve holster to flick a locking spell at the library door. The spell bounces right back at him, knocking him rather hard on the shoulder. Getting hit with your own _Colloportus_ isn’t the smoothest hookup move, but before Charlie can get too narked about it, Sirius does the spell over and it holds. 

And then Sirius looks at him and it holds. 

And then Sirius slides off the couch like warm treacle, into a standing position that they both know is going to be very temporary. 

Sirius crosses the floor toward Charlie and on the way, with one sweep of his arm, he shoves every single book off the library table, an entire shelf’s worth of leather-bound books all falling to the floor every which way. Then looks at Charlie and smiles. 

And Charlie—Charlie who struggled so badly all through Hogwarts because of fucking _books,_ Charlie Weasley who left seventh year because Fuck Them All if they couldn’t see the power he had in himself, only on the Quidditch pitch could they see it and the rest of the time it was red ink all over his parchments he’d spent the whole night writing, it was D’s and Trolls on half his O.W.L.s even though he knew the answers because he couldn’t get the words to come out the right way so he finally fucked right off and became head keeper at the most respected dragon reserve in Eastern Europe and Fuck Every Last One of Them who couldn’t see it, THAT Charlie Weasley—

—watches Sirius Black fling a bunch of Rare and Valuable Books to the floor and gets the hard-on of his life. 

Not to mention that it’s a goddamn classy way to indicate you want to be fucked over a table. 

Charlie goes toward him, his magic rushing into his fingertips in anticipation of the touch. Sirius’s eyes holding and holding, and Jesus and Merlin, Charlie is going to hold him right back. 

His hands know where they’re wanted. They go there, one finger hooking into the belt loop of Sirius’s black jeans, the other cruising around Sirius’s waist and down into his back pocket to cup his arse. Sirius goes all liquid, leaning back as Charlie hauls him forward, giving Charlie his weight to do with as he likes. 

What Charlie likes first is to kiss him. He cups Sirius’s jaw in his hand, Sirius’s carefully trimmed beard catching on Charlie’s rough fingers, and draws Sirius’s head down toward his own. The fact that Sirius is taller only accentuates the fact that Charlie is going to bend him just where he wants him to go. Charlie kisses him and Sirius’s lips open and his magic opens too, the way a dragon opens its flame portals in pleasure when Charlie strokes along its back just so. He strokes Sirius just so, his hand sliding up under Sirius’s shirt, up the knobs of his spine. Sirius mmm’s against Charlie’s mouth, tasting him, asking him to taste. To take. 

“What are you into?” Charlie pulls away to ask. Already knowing, more or less, but wanting to make Sirius say it.

“You,” Sirius says, with a look that Charlie feels right in his cock. 

“Yeah?” He would roll his eyes at the corniness, but his eyes seem to be stuck on Sirius’s face. 

“I’m into whatever you’re into.” Sirius has dropped the flirtatious tone. “Go ahead.” 

Charlie might have predicted as much, that Sirius’s kink is danger. Is not having a conversation first. Is just showing up and taking it. Charlie knows the type. He likes the type, although he thinks he probably shouldn’t. He likes it the way he likes dragons. When he’s the only one in the equation with a sense of limits. The only one who’s read the manual, except there is no manual; he has to sense each step from the body before him. 

“I’ll take anything you’ve got,” Sirius says, and God, those eyes. How did Charlie never notice them before? Grey coals burning deep in the ashes of his Azkaban pallor.

Charlie steps forward and takes hold of Sirius’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. Settles his hand there, letting Sirius feel him. 

“That is, if you think you can handle it, _Charlie._ You can push me down between your knees and let me suck you off. Or you could bend me over and open me up with those big fingers of yours—” 

So this one runs his mouth when he’s turned on. Or nervous. But Charlie needs Sirius to shut up for a minute so he can feel what it is Sirius needs. 

“—I’m an Animagus, you know,” Sirius is saying. “If you’re into really kinky shit, we could—”

Charlie shifts his hand to the side of Sirius’s jaw, watching to see if Sirius understands what the gesture indicates. 

Sirius does. He cuts off mid-sentence, his chin suddenly resting in Charlie’s roughened palm. The barest blink of acknowledgment flickers across his face like the twitch of a muscle. 

Charlie slaps him. 

Sirius flinches, but not much. His cheeks turn pink, and his eyes dilate a little as something passes between them. It’s not something Charlie knows the word for, not something he’s ever read in any book. But the transaction he doesn’t have the words for tells him this: that after twelve years in Azkaban, some part of Sirius will always be a prisoner. And Sirius wants to give Charlie the freedom to do what he likes because Charlie’s freedom will be Sirius’s too. 

Risky to play like that with strangers, but any escape from prison is risky, Charlie supposes. 

Or maybe Sirius trusts Charlie the way the dragons trust Charlie. Not because they’re fools, but because they can sense he won’t hurt them. 

Push them, yes. But never the wrong way. 

Sirius digs his jaw into Charlie’s bracing palm, eyes steady, body trembling. Charlie slaps him again, just below the lovely sharp angle of his cheekbone, and feels the sting in his cock. He was hard before and now he’s harder, swollen with the flood of endorphins welling in Sirius’s eyes, turning his eyes so very bright. 

“You can fuck me,” Sirius says breathlessly. “You can spread me out on that Noble and Most Ancient library table and fuck me blind.” 

“That what you like? Getting stuffed full of cock on the family heirlooms?” 

“I like everything,” Sirius says. 

Charlie feels a sudden prickle of irritation. ‘Everything’ is sloppy. Is a waste of how good he is, what he can do. He’s better than ‘everything,’ and he wants Sirius to know it. 

“Open your shirt for me,” Charlie orders. 

Sirius’s elegant fingers slip the buttons from their holes, the frayed shirt collar opening to sharp collar bones and the jagged runes of prison protections, opening further to reveal a faint dusting of dark hair and nipples the same pink as his mouth. Charlie gets his fingers on those nipples, milks them against his thumbs. He does it hard and steady. He does it with his eyes on Sirius, hurting him and making him watch and say yes to it with his eyes. He does it until is cock is leaking precome in his pants, until Sirius is panting and whining and his legs are shaking. When Charlie lets him go, Sirius stumbles and drops to his knees. 

“Goddamn,” he says, looking up from between Charlie’s boots, his hair half-covering his flushed face. 

Charlie likes the way he looks down there. He likes it very much. “Unzip me,” he orders. 

Despite the trembling in his hands, Sirius’s eager fingers are nimble on the zip of Charlie’s work pants, tugging open the heavy canvas treated with dousing spells. 

“Take me out.”

On his knees, head level with Charlie’s groin, Sirius takes down Charlie’s boxers, and without being told to, dives for Charlie’s cock. But Charlie’s too fast for him; his fist’s already in the spill of Sirius’s hair, hauling him back. 

“Did I say you could suck me yet? Smell me. No mouth.” 

With a deep, animal whine, Sirius buries his head at the root of Charlie’s cock and inhales like someone starved for a cigarette taking that first drag. Every hair of Charlie’s groin turns alive and electric as Sirius noses lower, nuzzling Charlie’s balls. A low growl of pleasure deep in his throat as he breathes in the scent of Charlie’s arousal. 

“You _are_ a dog,” Charlie observes, looking down at himself, his cock high and flushed against his freckled stomach and Sirius Black on his knees with his dark head buried in Charlie’s junk. “I hear you’re called Padfoot.”

Sirius makes a huffing noise. He grips Charlie’s quads just above his half-mast trousers, trying to push his legs apart. Charlie knows what Sirius wants, but he keeps his feet firmly planted, closing his eyes and sinking into the feeling of Sirius nosing at him, the brush of his beard, the softness of his mouth and nose. He lets his hands range over Sirius’s head, black hair catching on his callused palms. Then the wet heat of a tongue touches his sac and Charlie’s got his fist around Sirius’s hair so fast Sirius doesn’t even know he’s being moved until he’s been set back on his heels. 

“I didn’t tell you to lick me.” 

“Come on, Charlie.” Sirius gazes up at Charlie from under his lashes, his eyes going hot and liquid, his lips parting into a soft wet pucker. Merlin, Charlie feels that gaze right in his nuts. Sirius tilts his head to one side in what’s meant to look submissive, and which Charlie knows damn well is actually testing whether Charlie’s still gripping his hair. Charlie tightens his hold. 

“You do this for Remus?” Charlie asks. He’s not sure what makes him say it. It’s none of his business. But Sirius only nods, that grin spreading his already spread mouth further.

“He know you’re here on your knees in front of me, drooling for my cock?”

“Remus left this morning. For the werewolves,” Sirius says, grin fading, and his eyes fade too for a moment, and Charlie realises why he asked about Remus. It was to understand this, that Sirius isn’t trying to get away with something. Sirius is a dog whose master has gone away and left him behind. On dangerous work, no less. Charlie can work with that. 

He pushes his hand deeper into Sirius’s hair. Whatever Azkaban did to him, it didn’t touch this mane. Charlie tugs, watches with satisfaction as Sirius snaps back into the moment. 

“Come on,” Sirius croons again, somewhere between a wheedle and a demand. “I’ll give you the blowjob of your life, Charlie.” He grins again, his wide mouth parting wider, and damn, Charlie wants his dick in there. “I give amazing head,” Sirius continues, leaning away from Charlie’s hand and toward his body like a dog straining on a lead. “You can come straight down my throat.” He opens his mouth, dropping his tongue back until Charlie can see his tonsils.

Enough, Charlie thinks, and shoves two fingers in. Sirius gags a little, his eyes widening in surprise, but he recovers fast and gets to work, closing his lips around Charlie’s knuckles and running his tongue over the pads of Charlie’s fingers. Charlie feels him settle. He feels the exact moment when Sirius submits, when it changes from performance to engagement. He can feel it in the tip of Sirius’s tongue against his finger, that he’s no longer showing off. He’s _feeling_ Charlie now, tasting the scar on the side of his index finger, registering his middle finger’s swollen knuckle. Feeling Charlie press those fingers against his tongue, feeling his mouth flood with saliva. And now the magic they don’t teach at Hogwarts is flowing full-force between them, Sirius on his knees for Charlie, _responding_ to Charlie, no longer trying to run the show himself.

“Good dog, Padfoot.” 

Sirius hums around Charlie’s fingers, slick wet in the heat of his mouth. 

“You want a taste of my cock?” 

Sirius nods up at him, eyes burning. Holding. Charlie slides his wet fingers free and takes his dick in his hand, rubbing the tip against Sirius’s slightly swollen upper lip. “You want this?”

“Yes.” Sirius’s voice is low and hoarse and hungry and it makes Charlie’s cock ache. “Please.” 

Keeping hold of himself, Charlie lets Sirius have just the tip of his dick in that soft hot mouth. Charlie feeds him slow, and God, it’s good to watch Sirius mouthing at him, Sirius trembling with barely-restrained desire to throw himself forward on Charlie’s shaft. 

“Slow,” he commands, and dares to let go of his dick so he can fist both hands in Sirius’s dark mane. Sirius obeys, taking him deeper very slowly, and yeah, Sirius wasn’t boasting, was he, he knows what to do with a cock in his mouth. Charlie grips the rough silk of Sirius’s long hair, twisting it around his fingers, directing him: _Deeper. Shallow. Pull off. Taste my tip._

Oh Merlin god and fuck, Sirius knows. Sirius meets him. Sirius seems to know what Charlie needs in the same way Charlie knows what Sirius needs. Maybe it’s the dog in Sirius, sensing the mood of the master, or maybe it’s just that Sirius is a talented cocksucker, but forget about fucking Sirius over the table this hour, because Jesus fucking Slytherin Christ, Charlie is going to come. His whole body is in his cock, the hair on his scalp shivering as Sirius’s tongue plays up and down his shaft. He didn’t mean for it to go this way but here he is, riding on the back of a dragon who’s stronger than Charlie imagined. 

Charlie looks down at the ground far below him, Sirius gazing up at him, and it’s too late to say anything except what he does say, which is _be a good dog and make me come, Padfoot,_ and Sirius’s eyes flutter closed like he’s dreaming. His body goes taut-relaxed, a shiver of muscles rearranging themselves into pleasure as Sirius becomes pure instinct and body and their bodies move together. 

Charlie’s body gathers itself. Gives itself to Sirius. Everything else falls away. Even the war, death, and the fear of death.

Because Charlie is for life. He’s pouring life into Sirius when he comes down his throat. 

And Sirius is for life when he grips Charlie’s thighs, tightens his lips around Charlie’s cock and moans and swallows, taking everything Charlie gives him. Charlie’s magic is vibrating so hard that Sirius is shaking with it, Sirius calling it out of him and offering his own magic in return, a bright beast, strong and ancient and shining. Charlie holds on and lets Sirius fly.

When he comes down to earth Sirius pulls off, then rests his head against Charlie’s thigh, breathing hard. Charlie clutches Sirius’s head. He feels boneless, dizzy and oddly shaken. Sirius Fucking Black has just taken him for a ride he didn’t even know he was on, and Merlin, that was an orgasm. 

Just as he thinks he’d better sit down before he falls down, Sirius gets up off his knees and rests his head on Charlie’s shoulder, and Charlie puts his big hands on Sirius’s arse and feels himself grow steady again, his feet on the floor in his dragonhide boots and his hands cupping warm flesh through old soft denim. When he’s got his breath back, he puts his hand once more on Sirius’s chin, this time to bring him in for a kiss. 

They kiss for a long time, slow and liquid. Charlie drinks in the tang of Sirius’s mouth, firewhiskey and spunk and traces of Muggle tobacco, the heavy saliva from his deepthroating diluting it all to the sweetness of water. 

Charlie becomes aware of Sirius’s hard-on against his belly. He moves his hands to Sirius’s bony hips, jutting just above the waistband of his jeans. He takes hold of them, smooth as a baby dragon’s wing buds. 

“Get me off, Charlie,” Sirius murmurs against his mouth, and it takes everything Charlie has to push Sirius back, hold him by the hips at arms’ length, feeling the heat between their bodies stretch as they separate. 

Charlie takes a breath. He doesn’t even need to feel for the right answer; it’s already leaving his mouth. 

“Later,” he says, and letting go of Sirius completely, he zips up his jeans.

Sirius blinks, the shock that should have registered when Charlie slapped him finally visible on his face. 

“You’re going to show me you can behave,” Charlie tells him. “I’m going to have a shower and a kip and a meal and you’re going to think about me fucking you and not so much as touch your dick except to piss.” 

Sirius takes an audible breath. Charlie watches. Is he playing this right? 

Something shifts in Sirius’s face. The disappearance of a harshness Charlie hadn’t known was there until he sees its absence. The places it was, at the edges of his eyes and in the line of his jaw, grow soft. 

“I can behave,” Sirius says. His voice is like the breath you draw to blow out candles on a cake. 

Charlie feels the light of those candles deep in his belly. 

“Later, then.” 

“Later,” Sirius agrees, and the understanding passes between them: “later” is a promise there will _be_ a later, and not just for Sirius and Charlie. For all of them.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to all the commenters who so kindly and enthusiastically asked for a sequel to "A Taste of Ginger." What came out was this prequel, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless! Maybe someday there will be a true sequel as a part 3, but I don't know when. As you will see from the lag time of several years between posting parts 1 and 2, I am not a speedy writer.
> 
> I deeply appreciate your kudos and comments—and for this fic especially, your enthusiastic comments were instrumental to its being written at all. Thank you!


End file.
